SSD Endurance

[dave_boo]

Tech Report's SSD endurance experiment is finally paying off. After 700+ TERAbytes of writes, the first three drives have fallen. Three remain. For all those who worry about writes to their SSD, I think it's fairly safe to say that is not an issue. At 10 GB/day, you'll need some 190 years to wear out the flash. Even completely erasing and writing a 512 GB drive daily means it will last almost 4 years.

[Tywais]

My SSD (OCZ Vertex) is going for 5 years now. When I got it I did read the horror stories about write life limits and trim support to minimize write failure issues. The best performance enhancement I've made and will never go back to spinning platters for my OS and applications.

[Pib]

With my luck, I'm sure my 1 month old Seagate and Samsung SSDs will help lower the average TB failure point.

They sure brought a performance boost to my two laptops, especially my 8 year old Toshiba laptop running an old generation Celeron CPU...the SSD turned the laptop back into a response computer...made a night and day difference. Now for my fairly new Lenovo i7 quad core CPU the SSD made significant performance improvements also but less so as compared to the improvements seen on my older, much less powerful laptop. Yeap, SSDs can make a big difference (real world...not just benchmarks) in computer responsiveness/speed.

Sent from my Samsung S4

Edited June 17, 2014 by Pib

[JSixpack]

Good info, thanks. Those advocating putting paging files on a different disk to save wear on the SSD, take note.

[dave_boo]

My SSD (OCZ Vertex) is going for 5 years now. When I got it I did read the horror stories about write life limits and trim support to minimize write failure issues. The best performance enhancement I've made and will never go back to spinning platters for my OS and applications.

I haven't had a /swap partition since I got my Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB. Going on 4 years, it's in my daughter's desktop and has never had a performance hiccup. Now I use the Samsung 840 TLC and Crucial's M500 msata drives and for a price to performance standpoint they are outstanding.

Reckon the M.2 drives will be next up

[Chicog]

Good info, thanks. Those advocating putting paging files on a different disk to save wear on the SSD, take note.

I advocate having lots of RAM and disabling the page file.

Certainly isn't an issue in Win 7.

[dave_boo]

With my luck, I'm sure my 1 month old Seagate and Samsung SSDs will help lower the average TB failure point.

They sure brought a performance boost to my two laptops, especially my 8 year old Toshiba laptop running an old generation Celeron CPU...the SSD turned the laptop back into a response computer...made a night and day difference. Now for my fairly new Lenovo i7 quad core CPU the SSD made significant performance improvements also but less so as compared to the improvements seen on my older, much less powerful laptop. Yeap, SSDs can make a big difference (real world...not just benchmarks) in computer responsiveness/speed.

Sent from my Samsung S4

Same boat. With my Y500 there is little change except for loading times. However on my old UL80VT (has a dual core SU7300...1.3ghz of Core2 power!) it makes the machine very usable. And that's on SATA-II connection.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[12DrinkMore]

So how long can these drives hold data when in the non-powered state?

[DogNo1]

Chicog: How many gigabytes of RAM do you recommend to substitute for the page file?

[Pib]

So how long can these drives hold data when in the non-powered state?

1 to 10 years.

One of my SSDs is a Seagate 600 Series 480GB....below is a cut and paste from its spec regarding data retention when powered off...be sure to read the note code.

[muratremix]

Chicog: How many gigabytes of RAM do you recommend to substitute for the page file?

I have 8 gigs and win7, no paging file. Of course this is an ultrabook and I don't play games.

[Pib]

With my Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD the accompanying Samsung Magician software used to manage/optimize SSD & Windows setttings recommends a paging file (virtual memory) size of 100MB to 1GB with the initial size being 100 to 200MB depending on your machine and software to help minimize unnecessary writes to the SSD while realizing some software expects to see/use a paging file. You would adjust the paging file size upwards depending on if you got Windows messages saying the paging file needed to be increased in size or get other indicators the paging file needed to be increased in size. On my i7 CPU based laptop with 8GB of memory the Samsung Magician software selected 200MB as my paging file size. Below is a cut and paste from some of the Samsung Magician software which can be used to manage SSD and certain Windows settings.

Virtual Memory

In order to address any potential lack of memory capacity, the Windows OS automatically generates a block of virtual memory (stored in a hidden pagefile.sys file) on the “C:” drive. In the past, before PC Memory (DRAM) was available in high volume, PCs needed to utilize some HDD space to address any memory shortcomings. The Windows OS automatically reserves storage space for Virtual Memory equal to 100% of physical DRAM capacity (e.g. Windows will reserve 4GB of Virtual Memory for a system with 4GB of DRAM or 32GB of capacity for systems using a 64-bit OS and featuring 32GB of DRAM). Reserved space will be dynamically allocated based on resource needs, which often never exceed the available physical memory (DRAM) in recent PCs that feature 4GB of memory or more. Thus, it is possible to reduce or even eliminate the use of virtual memory (with the additional fringe benefit of improving overall system performance and reliability).
The “Maximum Performance” conifguration profile uses Window’s default Virtual Memory settings. Magician sets a minimum of 100MB and a maximum of 1GB of Virtual Memory for the “Maximum Capacity” and “Maximum Reliability” profiles. A minimum amount of Virtual Memory capacity is necessary because some software applications require at least a small amount of Virtual Memory, which is why Magician sets 100MB rather than elminating it altogether. Additionally, systems running for extended periods (days or weeks at a time) without a restart may run out of Virtual Memory if the capacity is set too low, so Magician sets a maximum of 1GB of Virtual Memory to accommodate this scenario. If your particular system needs require more Virtual Memory, you may adjust settings manually via the “Advanced” tab in Magician.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Pib

[keeniau96]

The new SanDisk ExtremePro (240, 480, 960GB sizes) has a 10-year warranty, rated at 80TB (~22GB per day for 10 years). AnandTech review of this says it is the fastest : "The Extreme Pro is without a doubt the fastest SATA 6Gbps SSD in the market"

So they are fast, great endurance and getting more affordable by the day. I am ordering the Crucial MX100 500GB today from Newegg, US$220 delivered to a friend in USA. Hard choice between that and the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB.

[muratremix]

The new SanDisk ExtremePro (240, 480, 960GB sizes) has a 10-year warranty, rated at 80TB (~22GB per day for 10 years). AnandTech review of this says it is the fastest : "The Extreme Pro is without a doubt the fastest SATA 6Gbps SSD in the market"

So they are fast, great endurance and getting more affordable by the day. I am ordering the Crucial MX100 500GB today from Newegg, US$220 delivered to a friend in USA. Hard choice between that and the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB.

Make sure that your ssd is tested before you have it sent to thailand.

I read a lot DOA ssd units which would be a shame if you received a dead unit.

Make sure ssd is tested properly for at least 24 hours.

[wpcoe]

With my Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD the accompanying Samsung Magician software used to manage/optimize SSD & Windows setttings recommends a paging file (virtual memory) size of 100MB to 1GB with the initial size being 100 to 200MB depending on your machine and software to help minimize unnecessary writes to the SSD while realizing some software expects to see/use a paging file. You would adjust the paging file size upwards depending on if you got Windows messages saying the paging file needed to be increased in size or get other indicators the paging file needed to be increased in size. On my i7 CPU based laptop with 8GB of memory the Samsung Magician software selected 200MB as my paging file size. Below is a cut and paste from some of the Samsung Magician software which can be used to manage SSD and certain Windows settings.

I can't recall the app, but some program I tried to install would not install without a paging file. It's not that the program itself needed a page file to run, but the installation process was hard-coded to look for the existence of a page file (of any size.)

I currently use a manual setting of 800MB min and 4096MB max size for the paging file on the C: drive If a page file ever expands from its minimum size, it will stay at the highest size it used until a reboot resets it to a minimum.. I randomly check from time to time and have never seen the file larger than the 800MB size.

In fact, in older Windows versions I used to set the minimum to 128MB, but (and I forget the reason now) the minimum for Win8 (did it start with Win7?) is recommeded for 800MB for my system with 12GB RAM.

[Pib]

With my Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD the accompanying Samsung Magician software used to manage/optimize SSD & Windows setttings recommends a paging file (virtual memory) size of 100MB to 1GB with the initial size being 100 to 200MB depending on your machine and software to help minimize unnecessary writes to the SSD while realizing some software expects to see/use a paging file. You would adjust the paging file size upwards depending on if you got Windows messages saying the paging file needed to be increased in size or get other indicators the paging file needed to be increased in size. On my i7 CPU based laptop with 8GB of memory the Samsung Magician software selected 200MB as my paging file size. Below is a cut and paste from some of the Samsung Magician software which can be used to manage SSD and certain Windows settings.

I can't recall the app, but some program I tried to install would not install without a paging file. It's not that the program itself needed a page file to run, but the installation process was hard-coded to look for the existence of a page file (of any size.)

I currently use a manual setting of 800MB min and 4096MB max size for the paging file on the C: drive If a page file ever expands from its minimum size, it will stay at the highest size it used until a reboot resets it to a minimum.. I randomly check from time to time and have never seen the file larger than the 800MB size.

In fact, in older Windows versions I used to set the minimum to 128MB, but (and I forget the reason now) the minimum for Win8 (did it start with Win7?) is recommeded for 800MB for my system with 12GB RAM.

Yea, I briefly tried a no paging file setup on my i7 CPU based computer with 8GB RAM running Win 8.1 and it wasn't long before I got a message when using some piece of software that I needed a paging file. And on my 8 year year old Celeron based CPU with 2GB RAM and running Win 7, it get the message from Windows pretty fast saying it needs a paging file.

[Tywais]

With my Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD the accompanying Samsung Magician software used to manage/optimize SSD & Windows setttings recommends a paging file (virtual memory) size of 100MB to 1GB with the initial size being 100 to 200MB depending on your machine and software to help minimize unnecessary writes to the SSD while realizing some software expects to see/use a paging file. You would adjust the paging file size upwards depending on if you got Windows messages saying the paging file needed to be increased in size or get other indicators the paging file needed to be increased in size. On my i7 CPU based laptop with 8GB of memory the Samsung Magician software selected 200MB as my paging file size. Below is a cut and paste from some of the Samsung Magician software which can be used to manage SSD and certain Windows settings.

I can't recall the app, but some program I tried to install would not install without a paging file. It's not that the program itself needed a page file to run, but the installation process was hard-coded to look for the existence of a page file (of any size.)

Despite what others state, a paging file is needed in some instances even if it is not being used for caching. Doesn't have to be large if you have a large complement of memory. I keep mine on a hard drive as I don't have a large SSD (120GB) but I have 8GB memory so not a problem for a small page file.

[rhythmworx]

Pci-e SSD is the future, have a look @ the OCZ Z-Drive 4500, up to 2900 MB/s and 252,000 IOPS

[Pib]

This SSD Endurance Test - Live website provides endurance info on the 4 different SSDs...a Samsung, Intel, SanDisk, and Kingston SSD. One of the four has failed. But the website don't look like it's being kept up to date anymore based on the chart data dates....maybe the endurance of person running the test gave out. But regardless it does give some more insight on how long a SSD can live...be sure to click on the individual drives to pull up more detailed info.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Pib

[Pib]

Here is how long Samsung says its 840 Series SSDs will last based on X-amount of daily workload writes per day. You will see its "many" years...see the chart below for how many, many is. But of course the SSDs are not actually warrantied for many years (usually only 3 to 5 years) since other electronic failures/environmental factors/etc., can cause a SSD to fail other than just the memory cells failing. Also, one thing I've noticed in numerous SSDs articles to include the Samsung info below, the larger capacity SSDs should last significantly longer than smaller capacity SSDs since larger capacity SSDs have more memory cells for the write actions to be distributed across thereby reducing the average writes per memory cell. Write actions, not read actions, is the main cause of memory cell deterioration.

[astral]

Thanks for a very useful thread

I am thinking about buying a 1Tb SSD to speedup my laptop

[Tywais]

Thanks for a very useful thread

I am thinking about buying a 1Tb SSD to speedup my laptop

Deep pockets? Runs around 25,000 Baht here.

[Pib]

Thanks for a very useful thread

I am thinking about buying a 1Tb SSD to speedup my laptop

Deep pockets? Runs around 25,000 Baht here.

Or is a person could get it hand delivered by a friend from the U.S./western country for only around 13,500 baht (approx $420) for say a Samsung 840 EVO 1TB....I just checked the price on NewEgg. I was lucking enough to have a couple of friends from the U.S. passing through Bangkok and I got my two 500GB SSDs delivered that way...I ordered them...had them shipped to the friends houses...they bring them over on their trip to Thailand. I saved around 50% that way...but like I said I got lucky in some friends passing through Bangkok. All SSDs are kinda pricey in Thailand and get real pricey for 500GB or more.

[Spoonman]

Iam on my 3rd Vertex. purchased the 1st and the next 2 are replacements for the dead ones. they seem to last (me) 12 months so I expect #3 to go anytime soon.

[astral]

U.S./western country for only around 13,500 baht (approx $420) for say a Samsung 840 EVO 1TB

Yes that is the price I am looking at

but will have to travel or find someone to hand carry for me

[wpcoe]

U.S./western country for only around 13,500 baht (approx $420) for say a Samsung 840 EVO 1TB

Yes that is the price I am looking at

but will have to travel or find someone to hand carry for me

And then there is always the "Thai Customs Lottery" game to play: Using a Shipito address, have the item forwarded to Thailand via USPS. Reports (in various forums here on ThaiVisa.com) have been that when shipping via a courier service such as DHL, FedEx, etc all packages are routed through Thai Customs for levying of a customs duty, but packages via mail largely do NOT get assessed customs duties. An SSD or two would probably be small enough to slip through undetected.

[h90]

Good info, thanks. Those advocating putting paging files on a different disk to save wear on the SSD, take note.

Well it is a strange idea anyway. When the paging file is needed, the speed of the SSD helps most.

It is not using the SSD when you need it most.

[JSixpack]

Good info, thanks. Those advocating putting paging files on a different disk to save wear on the SSD, take note.

Well it is a strange idea anyway. When the paging file is needed, the speed of the SSD helps most.

It is not using the SSD when you need it most.

True. If you have plenty of RAM, you can also just put it and Temp folders on a RAM disk.